Skulduggery's Hat
by localjuggernaut
Summary: Some short stories based on Skulduggery's favourite hat. Sort of shippy. Part Two: Skulduggery suffers a blow to the headwear when Valkyrie does some kitchen bizz.
1. Sleeping on the Job

Nobody had spoken for at least three minutes.

Ghastly Bespoke and Tanith Low were still staring at her in disbelief. Ghastly, unlike Tanith, had remembered some ounce of common courtesy and closed his mouth at least. Tanith was gawping silently in full-blown shock, her blonde hair flopped around her shoulders as though mimicking her baffled expression.

The only person Valkyrie did not dare look at was Skulduggery Pleasant. The man was standing to her right, just out of her field of vision in the silent sitting-room. He hadn't said a word since he'd entered and found his assistant curled up on his sofa, wearing his hat and jacket and hugging a pair of his shoes.

Valkyrie chewed up a few excuses in her mind, rejecting each as unlikely or embarrassing. The silence was approaching four minutes and Valkyrie was about to open her mouth with an unknown explanation, when Tanith suddenly broke the stifling silence.

She burst out laughing.

"Val!" she shrieked. "Seriously, there are other types of comfort blankets than men's shoes." She doubled over in hysterics and Valkyrie couldn't help grinning too, though her cheeks were still beetroot.

She chucked a shoe at Tanith, which bounced off without causing damage and the two girls jumped into a session of mock-sparring, made difficult by the fact that they kept doubling over with mirth and clutching each other and wiping their eyes. The hat bounced away in the flurry and Valkyrie forgot about it.

Ghastly raised his eyebrows at this sudden and abrupt change of mood, and looked around for Skulduggery, but he had already left the room.

The tailor found his friend in the room next door staring intently at the hat as though it was the most fascinating thing on the planet. Skulduggery's head was bare, revealing the white of his skull and the bones in his neck. His back was oddly stiff.

Ghastly cleared his throat, and only spoke when Skulduggery said nothing.

"I'm sure she didn't mean anything by it. She was cold... er, probably"

Skulduggery looked around and plopped his hat back onto its rightful place atop his head.

"I see."

"She's a kid."

"I know that."

"She wouldn't..."

"I know. I'm a role-model." He glanced at a watch that didn't exist on his skeletal arm. "I'm also a late one. Do excuse me." And with that he gently pushed past Ghastly and headed back the way they had come. Ghastly followed more slowly.

"Come on, Valkyrie. Hero time again."

Ghastly watched as Valkyrie pushed herself off the sofa and followed Skulduggery out the front door. She didn't say a word.

Ghastly turned to Tanith.

"What do you think?" he asked.

Tanith looked up and shrugged. "She's a girl. She wants security."

Ghastly straightened his jacket and adjusted the scissors in his belt.

"What if..."

"Come on, Ghast! You can't possibly think she could be in _love?_"

"...The likelihood is pretty low, I'll admit."

"She's not stupid. She's just lost in a world of magic and menace. She wouldn't be so daft as to fall in love with a living skeleton." 

"So..." said Skulduggery at last. Valkyrie breathed a sigh of relief; the silence had been getting to her.

"Mm?" She still couldn't look at him. She instead watched the trees and cars zip past as they drove through the busy roads leading away from Haggard. Skulduggery drove the flashy Bently excellently. She couldn't help noticing.

"Care to explain?" Skulduggery's tone was calm. Valkyrie almost believed that he wasn't fazed in the slightest.

"Explain what?"

"The hat, the jacket... the shoes."

Valkyrie shrugged, though her face was flushing and her hands trembling slightly. "They are nice shoes."

"That they are."

They drove on in silence for a while, until Skulduggery suddenly swerved into a lay-by and juddered to a halt. Valkyrie was flung sideways and she narrowly avoided crashing into Skulduggery by gripping her seat.

She righted herself and turned to demand an explanation.

Something made her stop. Her breath hitched in her throat and she shut her mouth. Skulduggery was sat hunched forward with his head against the steering wheel and his hands gripping it loosely. With his usual disguise: large-rimmed hat, fuzzy wig, sunglasses and scarf, Valkyrie was jolted into thinking of him as not undead, but _living_. Alive and vulnerable and human.

"Skul..?"

"You do realise," he said after a pause. "I am dead."

"I know that."

"A skeleton."

"Right."

Skulduggery looked up at her and adjusted his hat. "As long as we're clear on that."

"Of course. Why wouldn't we be?"

His face didn't change, of course it didn't; he merely reached up and flipped his hat onto Valkyrie's head.

"You never do anything I tell you."

"That's what makes me so brilliant," she replied, grinning.


	2. 2 Never Wear a Hat in a Kitchen

Spending some time alone in the house one Sunday afternoon, Valkyrie thought she would try a hand at cooking.

It wasn't a particularly difficult soup recipe she'd chosen from one of her mother's bog-standard array of cooking books, but still somehow she had managed to make far too much. She currently had several pans brimming with water, assorted vegetables, and stock boiling away on the stove. Skulduggery, her partner-in-crime-cum-heroic-detective, was due to arrive in about twenty minutes and she wanted to appear as self-sufficient as possible when that time came. More than a need to impress her mentor, Valkyrie harboured a desire for independence. As if stopping evil villains destroying the world every other weekend wasn't enough, she hoped providing for herself would at least _help_ convince Skulduggery that she could survive without her parents.

One of the pans rattled ominously, and Valkyrie dropped an armful of carrots and onions to rescue it. The broth bubbled uncomfortably in the small pan, but she quelled the heat and hushed it back down. Once it was contentedly simmering again, she turned her attention to the scattered vegetables. As she gathered up the carrots into a neat pile, she heard the sound of a car pull up outside, then its door slamming shut. Tossing the onions onto the counter, she sidled up to the front door just as a sharp fist made a couple of raps on its framework.

Valkyrie pulled the door open. Skulduggery stood in the doorframe, rifling absently through his trenchcoat pockets. His dark sunglasses had slipped slightly, revealing the bone-white concave of his eye sockets. He wore a wiry wig beneath his hat and his scarf was pulled up high around his jaw. As he looked up at Valkyrie, she could almost imagine a look of mild puzzlement cross his face.

"I believe I've misplaced something," he said.

"Must be your old age," Valkyrie quipped. "You're forgetting things."

She backed up into the hallway to allow him to enter. He stepped through the door and shrugged off the heavy coat. The coat made it difficult to discern Skulduggery Pleasant's build, and good thing too, because he was unearthly skinny. His tailor-made pinstripe suit hung unnaturally off his frame, and although it was made well, it couldn't hide the fact that Skulduggery had no muscle, no skin and no tendons whatsoever. Only the coat managed to effectively hide Skulduggery's skeletal nature.

"So," he began, all business-like and efficient, still patting his pockets. "I have something to show you before we..." He suddenly stopped. "Are you cooking?"

Valkyrie, who had been about to point out that Skulduggery had forgotten to remove his wig and glasses, suddenly gasped and took off for the kitchen. Skulduggery followed just behind in time to see Valkyrie grab the smallest pan, which had begun to bubble violently. She tried to make a run for the sink but the pan was too hot. She shrieked for Skulduggery to find a bowl, but the kitchen was unfamiliar and as he bent down to scramble through cupboards, Valkyrie saw his hat.

Eyes watering in pain, she whipped the hat from his head, flipped it upside-down, and tipped the contents of the pot into the place where Skulduggery's head was supposed to go. The pot dropped to the floor. Valkyrie allowed herself to gasp with relief, shoving her burning fingers in her mouth.

Skulduggery stood up slowly, and turned to look at his partner. The guilty party sucked her fingers and looked back at him.

"Well," she said eventually, "I can vouch for it. It holds heat well." There was another pause. "And liquid."

"So it would seem." Skulduggery reached out a hand and dipped it into the hot soup, lifting out a strange device that looked like a hexagonal calculator. "Ah. There it is. I must have put it in my hat to keep it safe."

Valkyrie couldn't help it. She burst out laughing. The device received a wipe with a damp dishcloth and it was discovered that it was working well despite its brief time as a garnish. The hat, however, could not be easily salvaged. They tipped the soup into bowls and after wiping it down, left it to dry in Valkyrie's bedroom, out of sight of prying eyes.

"I'm taking any cleaning bills out of your paycheck, you know," Skulduggery harrumped good-naturedly as they climbed into his car. Valkyrie looked at him, seatbelt in hand.

"You don't pay me," she said.

"You're right, but if I did, the bill would come out of it," he replied. "Put your seatbelt on." Valkyrie poked her tongue out, which was rather childish but the moment needed it. Skulduggery almost looked like he wished he could copy her. Instead, he strapped the device to the dashboard and tapped in a few combinations. A red light blipped among perpendicular lines. It didn't mean much to Valkyrie, but it must have had some meaning to Skulduggery because he started the engine and leaned in his seat to peer into the rear view mirror. She didn't ask what the device was, although she expected to be told in time.

"Maybe you _should_ start paying me," Valkyrie said after a while, grinning as she clicked her seatbelt in place.

Skulduggery backed slowly out of the drive and said "I'm strapped for cash right now."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yes. It seems I'm going to have an extortionate cleaning bill to pay."


End file.
